Construction Of Cultural Trauma In Beloved

Toni Morrison is the first female African American writer to win the Nobel Prize forliterature. Her special identity enables her to have a high sense of racial responsibility.Beloved, as one of the most striking and most mature masterpiece has become an eternalclassic. Morrison expresses her racial, historical and cultural consciousness by symboliccharacters, which provides the basis for analyzing Beloved from cultural trauma perspective.Based on cultural trauma theory which is mainly put forward by Jeffrey C. Alexander,this paper will try to explore how Morrison constructs slavery as a cultural trauma for blackpeople by interpreting what compelling answers that she gives to the four key questions inconstruction of cultural trauma.This paper is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, Toni Morrison and Belovedwill be introduced briefly. Then it comes to the literature review. By summarizing andanalyzing comparatively the critics and scholars’ views abroad and at home, the feasibility ofanalyzing Beloved through cultural trauma theory will be proposed. The end of chapter one isabout the significance of the exploring construction of cultural trauma in Beloved. The secondchapter mainly introduces cultural trauma theory and highlights the four key questions inconstruction of cultural trauma, namely the nature of the pain, the nature of the victim,relation of the trauma victim to the wider audience, and the attribution of responsibility. Thethird and fourth chapters analyze how Morrison constructs slavery as a cultural trauma forblack people and what compelling answers she gives to the previous four keys questions.Although freedom has been entitled by law, racism still prevails. In American, black peopleunchained still live a life with little clothing to wear and little food to eat. At the same time,they have to endure various discriminations. The disruptive impacts and harms caused byslavery as well as its consequences are much worse than the suffering itself. Even thoseblacks in modern society are still traumatized and they fail to get rid of what their ancestorshave gone through. By constructing slavery as a cultural trauma, Morrison successfully makewider audience believe that they are also traumatized by slavery, which further enablescommunity members identify the cause of trauma as well as share the sufferings of others,and thereby they will take on board the moral and social responsibility for it. To reconstructblack culture, black people should face up to their past, give up the internalized white cultureand come out from self-alienation. The fifth chapter summarizes the main ideas of the paper.